In the usual printing machine, an ink fountain roller is arranged close to an ink fountain member forming an ink fountain, ink applied to the outer peripheral surface of the ink fountain roller from the ink fountain is transferred to an ink distributing roller by a vibrating roller, and the ink is further supplied to the printing surface of the printing portion via a plurality of other ink distributing rollers.
Conventionally, the ink fountain member has a plate shape, and the ink in the ink fountain is applied to the outer peripheral surface of the ink fountain roller through an ink channel defined by the ink fountain member and the ink fountain roller.
In such printing machine, the type of ink to use sometimes needs to be changed depending on the content of printing, in which case, the replacement procedure of changing the ink in the ink fountain for that to be used for the next printing is performed after the previous printing is completed. The replacement procedure includes collecting old ink in the ink fountain as well as cleaning the ink fountain member and each roller.
In the conventional printing machine, the vibrating roller and the ink distributing roller are automatically cleaned by a so-called inker cleaning, but the ink fountain roller and the ink fountain member are cleaned manually in the following manner since automation of cleaning is difficult to perform thereon. After the previous printing is completed, the old ink remaining in the ink fountain is taken out manually with the rotation of the ink fountain roller stopped, and the portion of the ink fountain roller and the ink fountain member that have contacted the ink is cleaned by hand. Thus, the collecting old ink and the cleaning works are troublesome, and furthermore, the replacement procedure requires time since the ink fountain member and the ink fountain roller must be cleaned by hand, whereby a long time is required until the next printing can be started.
Furthermore, the size (width) of the ink channel sometimes needs to be changed depending on the content of printing, in which case, the size of the ink channel is adjusted by changing the position or the angle of the ink fountain member in the prior art, but such adjustment is also troublesome.
The inventor of the present invention thus proposed the printing machine disclosed in patent document 1.
The printing machine includes an ink fountain member having fountain-forming faces; an ink fountain roller for applying the ink to its outer peripheral surface through the ink channel between the ink fountain roller and the ink fountain member; a plurality of rollers for supplying the ink applied to the outer peripheral surface of the ink fountain roller to the printing portion; a strip of sheet placed over the ink fountain member so as to cover the fountain-forming face with the middle part closely attached thereto; a sheet moving device for moving the strip of sheet in the length direction thereof; a pair of barrier plates attracted to the fountain-forming face from above the sheet and attracted to the outer peripheral surface of the ink fountain roller by a permanent magnet to form side plates of the ink fountain; a cleaning tank arranged close to and blow the ink fountain roller; a cleaning blade arranged in the cleaning tank; and a reciprocating device for switching the cleaning blade between a cleaning position of being in pressing contact with the outer peripheral surface of the ink fountain roller and a stand-by position of being away from the ink fountain roller. The ink fountain member is turned by a turning device to be positioned at one of a plurality of work positions, where a plurality of fountain-forming faces on which an ink channel-defining portion at the distal end comes close to the ink fountain roller and forms the ink fountain when positioned at each work position are formed at the periphery of the ink fountain member in the turning direction of the ink fountain member, and the distance from the central axis of rotation of the ink fountain member to each ink channel-defining portion differs from each other.    Patent document 1: Japanese Patent Publication No. 3194174